SGFSPRINGFIELD · THE 417After Dark

Plan a Night Out in Springfield

By SGF After Dark Editorial DeskPublished Last reviewed Methodology

Summary

Four decisions, in this order: which night, which part of town, what the door will ask for, and how you are getting home. Get them in that order and the rest of the night mostly arranges itself.

Nights out go wrong here in predictable ways — arriving after a cover has gone up, planning a walk between two places that are not walkable, or turning up at a door with an age policy nobody checked. None of those are surprises if you look them up, and all of them are verified on this site with the source attached.

  1. Pick the night

    The week is not uniform. Hours move, programming is fixed to particular evenings, and Thursday closes earlier than Saturday at several venues. Start here, because it constrains everything after it.

  2. Pick the part of town

    One walkable zone holds most of the nightlife; everything else is a drive. Deciding this before you decide the venue is what stops a night turning into three car journeys.

  3. Check the door before you go

    Age policies vary by venue and sometimes by night, and covers change with arrival time. These are the facts most likely to end a night at the entrance rather than inside.

  4. Work out how you are getting home

    The late venues close at the same time, which is exactly when transport is hardest to find. Decide this at the start of the night, not the end of it.

For a particular kind of night